Second Chances
by Lady Eponine Black
Summary: After her death, Bellatrix is offered a second chance at life. But to take it would be to go against everything she has ever known. When the times comes to choose, which train will she board?


_So many dreams lost,_

_So many lives sliced away._

_So much comes at a cost,_

_In death those coins we'll pay._

_But for some there is a second chance,_

_Through a station they can go,_

_A different life can be chosen at a glance,_

_But if you do, you must know:_

_A sacrifice, you have to make_

_And you must give up what to you is dear._

_But if that is the risk that you will take,_

_Then board a train, a new life here_.

It is quiet here, white and empty. Time seems to be suspended here, in this limbo of life and death. The air is still and silent, the smooth blank floors go on for miles, the rough white walls stretch up to the heavens. Train tracks stretch into the hazy distance, an omen of what you might receive here, in this station of new beginnings and death. The very air itself seems to glow, to shimmer and bend unto itself, snap like a rubber band, twist like lust, and roll like waves.

If you were not looking for him, you never would have seen the man. He sat at the table, his beard white, his robes white, indeed his very flesh white as the room around him. Only his eyes, blue as a piece of sea glass, stood out against the stark sameness. His skin was wrinkled like an olds mans but his eyes were youthful. He wore a pair of half moon shaped spectacles. His whisper pierced the silence like a needle through cloth.

"It is time, it is now, it has happened."

The words fell into the tangible air like stones weighed down by meaning, followed by, as if he had summoned them, the distant sound of a train whistle, the rumble of wheels that felt so out of place in this vastness. The train came into view over the horizon, a ghostly, spectral train that emitted neither smoke nor gas. There were no windows, but there was a door, and it was opening. Once she was out, the train left as quickly as it had came, leaving a hazy figure alone at the platform, starring at her hands as they formed out of the mist. She was tall, dressed in a loose black robe, her mass of tangled black hair spilling down her back. Dark heavily lidded eyes in a smooth pale face, long slender fingers and thin lips. Unlike the man, it was her eyes that were old, deep and full of horror and secrets and thorny vines, unfitting in the youth that was her face. This was a Bellatrix unshattered by Azkaban, unmoved by time.

Her eyes locked with those of the man, and she came toward him, gliding as though on skates. It was not until she was in front of him that she recognized him for who he was.

'You!" she spat, her eyes flashing dark venom as her hand shot to her pocket.

"Bellatrix. You will notice that you have no wand here."

"What have you done?"

"I? Nothing."

She turned away, her dark purple eyes seeking an escape. When she could not see one, she turned her gaze back on him.

"What is the meaning of this, you filthy blood traitor?" she snarled, fury in every syllable. "Why have you brought me here? Why have you not let me move on as I should?"

"I should think you should be grateful."

"_Grateful?_ What for? You have brought me to this god forsaken place, and stripped me of my wand." Her face, although younger, was still twisted in that demonic smile that she was known for. And although here she appeared younger, fuller, you could still see the vestiges of twisted darkness in her eyes. Insanity cannot be changed by death.

"I am offering you a new chance." His voice was low.

She peered at him full of disgust and amusement.

"A new chance? What do you mean?" she asked, her voice the height of scorn, cold ad unwilling.

"A new chance at life, Bellatrix."

"At life?"

"Yes. A life you have wasted, have you not." she did not answer. Here, in this strange place, in this limbo, she seemed younger, less like herself. Like who she had become. Stripped from her life and not yet clothed in death.

"I don't understand."

"it is not complicated. I am offering you the chance to go back."

"_To go back_. Back to what? To not die, you mean? To not get killed by the Weasly bitch?To see the Dark Lord triumph?"

"Back in _time_."

"And why would you think that I would even want that, you fool? What is the point of that?"

"To change."

"Change what? You are being ridiculous."

"Change your life, Bellatrix."

"I-"

"Listen to me. I am offering you a chance to go back you when you were young, just out of Hogwarts. To live your life again, to change how it went, how you lived it and wasted it. To have a new start. This is not a thing I can give lightly, Bellatrix. This is a chance to live your life over, to make better choices and fulfill your dreams. This is no small matter. I am giving you a second chance."

"Why?" she whispered, her eyes bright. "Why me?"

"Because you can love."

"The Dark Lord?"

"Yes."

She took a breath, looked at him.

"What is the point of that? Why do you offer me this? You hate me, hate what I stand for. What is the point of giving another death eater another chance?" She snarled at him, and tossed her head. He leaned toward her across the table, touched her elbow. With a growl, she turned on him, and he flinched back as if stung.

"Bellatrix. I am giving you a chance to live, yes. But if you go back, you will not be a death eater."

"What do you mean? That is who I am."

"That is _one_ of the people you could be. If you agreed, you would have a different life. You would marry Rodulpholus, yes. You would still be a Black. Just not a death eater. You would never meet Voldemort, never love him, work for him. The Dark Lord would not affect you in any way; you would live a different life. You would go somewhere else;another country, have children and a life, a real life. You could fulfill your dreams, start again. But you would have to regret all you have done. YOu would have to truly regret it. What do you say?"

She starred at him, shocked. He smiled.

"What… what is the alternative."

"Death."

"Which is?"

"I do not know."

"I see."

"So you choose a new life?" she didn't answer. "Of course you would." he continued. "How could you not? You have wasted twenty years in a worthless cause."

"Worthless" she spat. "No. You don't understand." She whispered. "You don't understand. You say you do, but you don't. You are saying I have wasted my life-i have not. You are saying I have not fulfilled my dreams. I have. I have done all I wanted to, there is nothing I can change, nothing I could do differently. I have lived my life for a cause I believe in, a man I have loved. I regret nothing, I would change nothing. My Lord is my life; it would be pointless to live without him. To give him up would never, ever be worth it. Do you understand?"

"You would not regret?"

"I cannot. "

He looked into her fathomless eyes and saw that that was truth. She could never regret who she was. Her soul was to mangled, to twisted and wrenched, bloodied and insane. The type of love she loved him with was not a real love, but one of fire and blood.

"You cannot."

"I do not regret anything I have done, ever. Everything I did, I did it because I wanted to, because it was something I believe in. I know I died for him, fighting for him. But so did you. How is it not the same? Would you regret? I doubt it. You look at me as though I am insane. I am. But isn't insanity better?"

"You are sane here, at the station."

"Obviously I am not. How could I be, when I refuse your offer? I can never be sane, Dumbledore. You think me a lunitic, I see it in your eyes But what does it matter?" She laughed at his shock, at the wonder on his old face. "You worthless old man. How are we to judge sanity? Who are we to determine why we do what we do? Who are we to understand others, to understand ourselves? I know that I wouldn't change a thing, regret a single moment. Without the dark Lord, there is no point. I cannot go back."

"You would choose death over a new start?"

"If it would sacrifice who I am, what I believe in, who I love."

"Then you choose death?"

"Yes."

"Your final choice?"

"Yes."

"You cannot go back after this."

"I know."

"Then board the train, Bellatrix."

She stood up, looked down at him with scorn and sadness, insanity crazed eyes. She stepped up to the train.

"Bellatrix!" he called. She turned. "Come back. Be happy, while you can. Before it is to late."

"I _was_ happy, Dumbledore. In my own way, looking back, I was happy." And as she stepped aboard, every person who she had been and would become passed through her ageless eyes. Young Bellatrix Black, a fiery little girl who knew even then what she wanted to do, a schoolgirl with power great enough to be trained by Him, A bride in a wedding veil, forever loving another, Bellatrix Lestrange, a creature of darkness who killed mercilessly, Bella, her lords Bella, a twisted mass of hate and murder, of shattered love and insanity. Bellatrix, who fell for her lord, who would die for her lord, who loved him. Bellatrix, who would rather die for him then live a new life without him. Bellatrix, who boarded the train willingly, never looking back.

Bellatrix, who rode into the oblivion with a smile on her face, because it was for Him.


End file.
